Saturday July 17 0809

Yesterday afternoon, Uberboss asked if I'd like to tagalong and be the 'token foreigner who makes the company look more important' guy at a billion+ yuan project proposal to the Nanxun City Government in Zheijang. The city is super old, and was the site of silk-growers for a long time. They're mostly countryside, but they have an enormous government building complex sitting in the middle of a bunch of agrarian fields. They want to change that, it seems.

We walked into the conference room, and everyone sat facing east, except for the executive bureaucrat, who sat on the other longside of the conference table alone facing west. I and others who weren't directly participating sat along the wall, and I was dead center in front of the mayor-equivalent. On the left were the architects, who gave pretty impressive building plans, in the center slightly in front of me was a councilwoman, and to my right was a group of (I presume) local relevant advisors (building codes, financier, etc).

It was all conducted in chinese, but because I had to be 'the foreign guy', I used my advanced skills in figuring out what people are on about to look quite important. It was funny that, because I was looking alert and understanding, the mayor basically ended up addressing me in chinese most of the two-hour meeting, so I'd nod understandingly and stuff. He caught me after the meeting and starting talking to me in Chinese, but he was completely floored that I didn't actually know any. He said I was 'very cool, and a great help to my company', and I just smiled and thanked him: I didn't even know which architect I was supposed to be rooting for!

Now I'm in Hanzhou (a relatively picturesque garden city, although it has plenty of factory smokestacks too?) and am being taken by the Uberboss' business friend to tour around a bit. I'll have to ask to borrow a camera, since I didn't get to hit my house for my camera before being whisked out here.

I think it is super weird that I was taken out here as a luck charm.